Abstract / Synopsis

This study was conducted to determine the extent of burnout experienced by teachers in secondary schools in Klang District as well as to examine the relationship between organisational communication factors and burnout. Simple random sampling was used to select three secondary schools from three different clusters of schools in the Klang District. A total of 136 teachers from these three schools
participated in this study. The study used self-administered questionnaires as the research instrument. The data collected were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Inferential statistics such as Pearson Correlation and T -test were used to answer the research questions and test the hypotheses. A significance level of 0.05 was used. This study discovered that the teachers experienced moderate level of burnout. The perceived organisational roles and communication climate among teachers within the selected schools were generally moderate. Organisational roles were the mam source of burnout. These stressors include role conflict and role ambiguity. Non-conducive communication climate also contributed toward burnout. Burnout had significant positive relationship with organisational roles and significant negative relationship with communication climate respectively. This study recommended that organisational roles and communication climate should be given serious attention by the school administration whereby
interaction in the workplace should enhance conducive communication climate and reduce the extent of role conflict and role ambiguity experienced by teachers. The
administrators should share their ideas, suggestions and decisions through open discussions and agreement with teachers in order to help reduce role conflict and role
ambiguity among teachers. There is a need for administrators to provide social support to teachers to buffer the negative effects of role conflict and role ambiguity on job satisfaction in order to tackle the problem of burnout among teachers. It is recommended that future research on burnout focus on teachers In different settings such as preschools, primary schools and secondary schools across the country. Teachers from other types of schools such as smart schools, vocational schools and boarding schools may also be focused. A comparative study of burnout among teachers from Malay, Chinese and Tamil primary schools can be conducted in order to better understand the occurrence of the phenomena of burnout. Burnout studies can also be conducted using interviews and observation methods besides administering questionnaires.